Conventionally, an endoscope system has been a medical system to be used in, for example, a medical institution.
An endoscope system typically includes an electronic endoscope that shoots an image of a subject, an image processing apparatus that performs various types of image processing on the shot image, and a light source apparatus that emits light to irradiate the subject via the electronic endoscope. The various types of image processing performed by the image processing apparatus include, for example, a white balance adjustment process based on white balance data obtained by a user for the electronic endoscope, the image processing apparatus, and the light source apparatus so as to optimize an image quality (e.g., hue).
The endoscope system may further include a server apparatus connected to the image processing apparatus over a network.
The following are known endoscope systems.
An electronic endoscope apparatus capable of preventing complications in a task of adjusting white balance and a decrease in color reproducibility of a subject image (see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-34166). An electronic endoscope apparatus that prevents a color change in a shot image that would be caused due to time-varying spectral distribution of an illumination light source (see patent Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2013-90884).
For operations of an endoscope system, some apparatuses may be replaced with corresponding newer-generation apparatuses (what are called new apparatuses). For example, an image processing apparatus and/or a light source apparatus may be replaced with new ones. In such a case, so that an optimum image quality similar to that in the system before the replacement can be obtained after the replacement, the user needs to obtain white balance data for the electronic endoscope, image processing apparatus, and light source apparatus to be used after the replacement as white balance data to be used in the white balance adjustment process after the replacement.